Context

There are many mysteries in life: who will be proved right or wrong on Brexit; why does toast fall butter side down; why do birds suddenly appear, every time you are near? 

One of these remains a mystery, but in contrast to the political question, the prosaic and the rhetorical have both been answered.

We have often been told that ‘the next few weeks are crucial’ in our negotiations to leave the EU and the next few weeks seem no different. It does look like this might well be the beginning of the end, although perhaps it will only be the end of the beginning. The Prime Minister has said that the plan that she has outlined – that has become known as the ‘Chequers Plan’ – is the only alternative to a ‘No Deal’ exit. Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the IMF, has said that there is no deal that will be as beneficial to the UK as staying in the EU. Mark Carney has warned the Cabinet that a ‘stress test’ of the banking system suggests that a worst case scenario, post-Brexit, is that house prices and the value of the Pound will fall, while inflation and interest rates will rise. Of course in the purple prose of Brexit the verbs were not ‘fall’ and ‘rise’, but ‘plunge’ and ‘spiral’. Opinion polls suggest that the public is not confident about the outcome of Brexit, but there is no consensus about whether we should leave or stay or whether there should be a further referendum.

On-demand television and streaming services have threatened to take the place of free-to-air viewing. The large audience figures that programmes like The Morecambe and Wise Show received seemed long gone. However, when television has offered genuine jeopardy, in sport and in Strictly…, people have tuned in in large numbers. Few dramas have had the same draw, although Sunday evening’s final episode of Bodyguard will probably buck the trend. Many people have found Jed Mercurio’s mystery to be compelling and so have gathered around a television set at the appointed hour rather than watch on catch up for fear of hearing a spoiler.

 

Reflection

What more can we say about Brexit that has not already been said? People voted for or against remaining in the EU on the basis of promises that were made to them. It has been said by those who voted ‘Leave’ that, ‘we were promised a unicorn, but what we got was a donkey wearing a party hat’.

Peter, Andrew, James and John believed that they had been promised a unicorn – a Messiah, who would make sure that the bad guys would get their come-uppance and finally free them from Rome. A suffering and dying Messiah wasn’t what they had in mind and so it was a shock when Jesus told them that this was what would happen to him. Had they got wrong their idea of what a Messiah looked like, or were they wrong in thinking that Jesus was the Messiah. That was certainly John the Baptist’s concern (Luke 7.19). Who should the disciples trust? Their own ideas of the nature of God’s Messiah, or Jesus himself? They – as we do with Brexit – would have to wait to find out the truth.

Despite the popularity of box-sets and binge watching of drama, there is still a place for the delayed gratification of a weekly serial, or a competition like Strictly Come Dancing. But a Mystery is only a mystery if it’s a mystery. While Bodyguard is well-written and acted, if we knew at the beginning the identities of the malevolent characters and what the outcome of the plot would be, we might still watch it, but it would not have the same draw. It is hard to avoid plot-spoilers in the social media age, although it was something that was also a problem in 1973. If the mystery is too complicated, we might lose interest and perhaps be nervous of asking for the opinion of others for fear of appearing foolish. Jesus’ disciples didn’t get it – they couldn’t understand the future that Jesus described, but they were afraid to ask him.

Matters of life and death are often mysterious. In a funeral service the minister might say something along the lines of, ‘God has given us birth and now we face the mystery of death’. There is a song by Iris DeMent, an American singer-songwriter called, ‘Let the mystery be’. The song is agnostic in tone, but perhaps all faith is literally agnostic – ie not knowing – otherwise it wouldn’t be faith.

 

Prayer

We come to you, the infinite Lord of all, as people who inhabit a finite world that we perceive with our finite minds and bodies. There is much that is a mystery to us. We recognise that ‘now we see in a mirror, dimly’ and that this will always be the case in this life, for those born of Adam. Some elements of that which is mysterious will be revealed in time to come, yet there is much that will remain hidden from our sight until we see you face to face.

Help us to rest in the knowledge that we need not fear the future, ‘though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging’.

In the name of Jesus, we pray to our Father, the eternal God, our refuge, upon whose everlasting arms, we lean.
Amen.

 

Questions

• Aung San Suu Kyi has been said to have fallen from grace. Are there other people – famous or known to you personally – who have turned out not to be who you thought they were?
• How would you live if you knew the future?

 

All-age activity

The words ‘minister’ and ‘deacon’ are derived from, respectively, the Latin and Greek words for a servant. Jesus said that whoever wants to be first must be the servant of all. Perhaps we have elevated our ‘servants’ too much and the order needs to be addressed. Try to find ways in which those who have the highest position in our Christian communities take the lowliest jobs and then give the places of honour and prominence to those considered least in this world. If it is your practice that the ministers serve the bread and wine of communion, could the children do this?

 

Young people

Remove one young person from the group and explain the ‘game’ Mornington Crescent to the others. Play the game with all the young people and then ask the one not ‘in the know’ how they felt about being mystified.

 

Simon Carver is a Baptist Minister in St Albans and takes a particular interest in film, sport and US politics.

 

 

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